


A Walk in the Park

by KeeLimeArt



Category: Wonder - R. J. Palacio
Genre: Cookies, Cute, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, Milk And Cookies, Misunderstandings, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 00:22:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9794153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeLimeArt/pseuds/KeeLimeArt
Summary: Little August Pullman never gets out of the house much. From hospitals to home-schooling, everything seems tied up at one point or another.However, just like any kid, Auggie wants to visit the playground for the first time in his life, but things don't turn out exactly as he was hoping...





	

Let's face it, despite appearances, August Pullman was no different than all the other children his age. All he wanted to do was run around, play games, watch movies, and everything else in between. Like any other child, he just wanted to have fun.

Unfortunately, unlike other children, because of his health, he was never given the proper time to do so. At least now that he was growing older and the operations that he had to be given were fewer and farther in between, he could do what he loved doing more often. Sooner than later, he was going to discover a few of the things that other normal kids loved doing. After all, it's only natural for a kid to want to go to the playground. 

Whenever his mother drove him somewhere in the car, they would always pass down that one road with a play area in the corner. The place had always fascinated Auggie, what with all the other kids running around, the bright colors shining bright against the background, and the many moving parts going into full swing. Regardless of his curiosity, even little Auggie knew that he wouldn't be able to go. Part of it was his health, of course. His parents treated him as though he were made of glass at times- a single jarring would break him, even though he insisted on playing ball the afternoon after an operation or similar activities. The other part was something that he didn't fully understand just yet.

Auggie was born with a few birth defects that severely impacted the structure of his face. The operations that he had to undergo were helping him in both getting him to function properly and fixing a few of the more extremities of his features. Staring, gasps, a few sharp squeaks of screams were completely normal for him whenever he went out. Though, the boy mostly remained around friends and family from birth. Those were the kind of people that got used to him and his appearance. Nothing was ever mentioned nor was anything wrong said in his presence. This was why he didn't understand the way people reacted when he caught them looking at him. He simply wasn't used to it.

On the way home one day, Auggie caught himself gazing longingly outside the window of the vehicle. He heaved a small sigh as he watched the children running around, laughing, and carrying on. The boy would love nothing more than to join them.

"Mom?" he timidly asked, all of a sudden. He pointed towards the play area. "What's that?"

Isabel Pullman's eyes immediately shot up to the rear-view mirror to glance over at her son. The woman had to learn early on to keep a sharp ear on the lookout, for her son had a tendency to mutter at times. When she took a quick look over to where he was pointing, she couldn't help but smile.

"That's a playground, Auggie. Parents will take their kids there to spend the day, play, eat picnics, that sort of stuff," she informed her son.

"Can I go to the playground, Mommy?" the boy innocently pondered aloud. 

Isabel was at a loss of words for a moment, stumped at the question. She raised her eyebrows in slight shock. Auggie had never wanted to do anything like that before.

"Um, how about this," she quickly rattled off, wanting to give him some sort of answer, "we'll talk to Daddy about it tonight, and see if you're ready for it."

"But I want to go there now..." the boy whined. 

Isabel softly cooed, "Now, now, I can't do anything about that. Let's talk tonight, okay honey? Maybe you can go tomorrow, if we think its okay."

"Okay..." Auggie begrudgingly grumbled. 

Isabel and her husband Nate got into a rather heated debate about the playground that afternoon. Auggie and his older sister Via were off coloring somewhere that they couldn't hear them. 

"I don't think he's ready," Mrs. Pullman bluntly stated with a shake of her head. "He's only gotten out of a surgery a couple of weeks ago."

"Yeah, and look at how active he is now. You can hardly tell that he was in the hospital for a few days," Mr. Pullman countered. "Besides, I think it would be good for him to get out there, get around other kids. He's only going to have to go out more and more as time goes on. It might be a nice experience to see how the outside world is."

"You and I both know why that's a terrible idea," Isabel told him, absolutely appalled by the idea. "You see the way that some of these people are! If you put him around others that are his own age, it's only going to make things worse! Kids can be cruel sometimes, even if they don't mean it. I just don't want anybody to get hurt."

"You’re hurting his future if you can't do anything but smother him like this. Besides, it'll only be for an hour or so. What's the worst that could happen? He goes there, he has fun, and at the end of the day, he can tell us all about it," Nate recommended. The loving man slipped up behind his wife and gently wrapped his arms around her waist. "Don't worry so much about him. You're going to be right there. He'll be fine." He leaned in to kiss the upper part of her ear, causing her to lightly chuckle.

"Alright, fine," she finally caved in. "Half an hour tomorrow, we'll go to the park. If it goes well, maybe, just maybe, he can go there more often."

Mr. Pullman gave his wife a quick peck on the lips. "Sounds good to me."

\-----

Auggie was positively bursting with excitement the next day. The small, frail boy could barely contain himself during the short drive to the playground, practically bouncing out of his car seat along the way.

"What kind of things can you do there?" he gushed, hands pressed against the windows as he looked out. 

"Well," Mrs. Pullman began, racking her brain for some of the more mild yet fun features. "There's always the swings, they're nice. Oh, and the slides, too. I always liked to go down the slides when I was your age. I'm sure that there are other things, too, but we'll just have to wait until we get there before we can find out, alright?"

August silently nodded his head and continued to look out of the window until the fabled ground of play finally appeared. He took a rather large, sharp gasp of air when they saw it, and he was practically falling out of his seat.

“There it is!” he cried. 

Mrs. Pullman smiled as she pulled into the parking lot. “I know, I know. Remember what I told you this morning, Auggie. Before we do anything else, you’ve got to put some sunscreen on. Especially today. It feels like the world’s on fire right now,” she stated, transitioning to more of an utter to herself there at the end.

“Let’s go!” August cheerfully stated. He was half tempted to tear away at the handle of the car just so he could get out. 

His mother got out of the car and walked to the side where August was placed, perhaps a bit slower than the boy would have liked. Nevertheless, Mrs. Pullman could not shake off the sinking feeling that was buried deep into her gut. She simply have to wave it aside, narrow the feeling down to nerves, despite her better judgement. 

Isabel gently yet firmly took her son by the hand and led him down the gravel path. Well, Auggie was doing more of the leading as he dragged his reluctant mother across the way. The mother’s stomach did a flip as she realized that the park was crowded once again. In an instant, she took her boy by the shoulders and turned him around to face her as she stooped down to his level.

“Alright, Auggie. We’re here to have fun but remember the rules that Daddy and I told you. Don’t play around the bigger kids-“ Isabel began.

“Stay where you can see me, and come back to you when you say it’s time to go,” the boy finished for her. “I know, Mom. Can we put on the sunscreen so I can go play now?”

Auggie’s mother sighed and stood with a nod of her head. The woman took a small bottle of sunscreen out of her purse and bent down to smear it all over her son’s exposed skin, giving him an extra dollop on his rather protruding nose. 

“Can I go now?” the boy anxiously wondered. 

“Alright. I think that’s enough. Go have fun,” she finally allowed. Before she was able to finish her words, Augie was bolting down the path to head for the main piece of equipment. It was a bright yellow color with two different slides attached to it, and several ways to climb up. Luckily for Isabel, Auggie simply chose to take the steps up to the slide. 

The effect was almost instantaneous. Although nothing would be wrong to a simply passerby, Mrs. Pullman’s trained eyes saw more than what appeared. Her son had absolutely no problem getting on the slides and coming down them. In fact, he didn’t have to wait in line at all, which was quite peculiar. Of the many times that they drove by the playground, the large slide seemed to be the most popular. Kids would sometimes push and shove each other out of the way in order to get closer to the opening, even though they still had to wait for the ones in front to go down first.

As soon as Auggie joined however, the group gradually dispersed. The path to the larger slide was left wide open for Auggie, for he could go on there as many times as he pleased. The boy didn’t seem to mind, but although Isabel sat there with a smile plastered onto her face, she was ebbed the wrong way by the behavior. Although, in that point of time, she had to accept that that was how things were going to be, for the rest of Auggie’s life. Still, it doesn’t dull the heavy feeling that she got every time that something like that happened.

At least he’s having fun, she reminded herself. 

And fun he had. Auggie carried on as though he were the happiest boy in the world, regardless of the stares and the whispers that were going on around him. The boy was either oblivious to the actions or simply ignoring them. Though, Isabel hoped that it was more of the former than the latter. Auggie would switch from play thing to play thing every so often, but the reaction was all the same. Nobody said a word to the boy, which was a good thing, but many children would move away, either from their own will or because their parents beckoned them over to leave. A strange vibe radiated from field, like a building tension that was waiting to explode. 

What finally made the scene pop was when Auggie decided that he didn’t want to play alone anymore. At home, he’d often have friends play with him that he’d known since he was a baby, and they didn’t mind him one bit. What he didn’t realize was that some of the other children weren’t going to respond the same way.

When Auggie went up to a little girl around his age to ask her to play, her response was less than subtle. She was already trying to walk away when he came up to her, but once she turned around to find him there, the little girl gave a loud, shrill shriek. She ran as fast as she could over to the arms of her mother, who in return picked her up and carried her away. Auggie watched as she sobbed in fear into her mother’s shoulder. 

Suddenly, the playground grew eerily silent. Not a peep was murmured, but all eyes were laid upon the same place on the same person: Auggie. Not even a boy that young could ignore what was going on. He looked around the area, at some of the people who were forcing him into the spotlight. Of the adults, as soon as he caught their eye, they would quickly turn away as if they had been looking there the entire time. As for the children, some of them moved away while the others turned over to hide behind their parents. At that point, several of the children’s guardians decided that it would be an opportune time to leave the park, but none of them let their scornful, judging eyes leave the boy that was left alone in the middle of the field.

Auggie’s heart began to beat a little faster as he wondered what was going on. Had he done something wrong? If he did, what did he do? Whatever it was, he knew one thing: He did not like the look that everyone had given him. It both frightened and saddened him. All he wanted to do was ask somebody to play with him. 

The boy himself was the one to break the silence. A few large tears ran down his face as his body racked with gentle sobs. It was a little embarrassing to him, but he couldn’t help what he was doing. Everyone was making him feel so uncomfortable, and all he wanted to know was why.

Before it could get any worse, Mrs. Pullman hurried over and scooped her boy up into her arms. Her son closed his eyes, allowing his face to press into his mother’s shoulder, away from the gaze of the others. He sniffled as he tried to contain himself, but Auggie didn’t think that he was going to be very successful.

“I think that’s enough for one day. Let’s go home,” Auggie’s mother whispered into one of his tiny, cauliflower shaped ears. To that, the tiny boy nodded. 

\-----

“He isn’t speaking to me at all,” Isabel reported to Nate. “I told you, I didn’t think that he was ready for this.”

“Hey, let’s not point the finger at anybody here. How was I supposed to know that something like that would happen? You’d think that people would have a little more respect than that,” Nate exasperatedly sighed.

“Well, the fact is, they don’t! They were all staring at him like he was a monkey in a cage, no disregard or anything. Forget the fact that he’s a child, but if this is the way that big groups of people treat him now, I don’t want to think of what’ll happen when he gets older,” she sighed. 

“But that will be then and this is now. Let us just try to focus on the present for now, because this is when he’ll have us and need us the most,” Nate reasoned. 

Isabel placed her hand under her chin in thought and remained silent for a moment. “I’m going to try to talk to him again,” she reasoned after a while.

Nate took out a plate and filled it with a few goodies for Isabel to take to their son. “Here, take something sweet up to him. He might open up a little easier that way,” he informed, handing it off to his wife. 

\-----

A soft rapping sounded from Auggie’s door, but the boy didn’t bother to answer, let alone look up. Despite this, Isabel cautiously walked in, finding her son facing the wall away from the door. Without speaking, she sat down on the edge of the bed and started rubbing the boy’s back.

“Hey Auggie,” she softly whispered. “I brought you some milk and cookies. Would you like one?” Like any other kid, Auggie could not resist the temptation of the plate of treats. He lazily turned around, taking one of the soft goodies and gingerly taking a bit out of one of them. Mrs. Pullman wrapped an arm around the side of his head and pulled him close to her chest.

“It’ll be alright, honey. We don’t have to go back if you don’t want to,” she told him.

“Why did they look at me like that, Mommy? Why’d the girl scream?” Auggie asked her.

“Because they just don’t understand some things, Auggie. Some people are just rude like that,” Mrs. Pullman tried to smooth over. She reached behind her to take a glass of milk from the stand and hand it to her son.

“Okay…” Auggie half-heartedly replied, taking a small sip from the glass.

For some reason, it felt like it wouldn’t be the last time that Isabel would have to do that.

**Author's Note:**

> ~A Comment A Day Helps The Author To Stay~


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